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prism-forgone · 1 year ago

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Deltarune Classpect Assignment, or: We've Been Godless For a Very Long Time Y'all

Everything that happens next can be blamed on the tumblr user @vriskologymajor. They literally asked for this to happen in response to me stating i have Some thoughts on the subject x. Enjoy the carnage lmao

Note that this whole analysis is over 2000 words long. I'm putting everything below Susie under the cut but there's also an analysis of Noelle, Kris, Ralsei, Berdly and a surprise someone in there. Please read it. Pretty please.

EDIT: An ask in which I elaborate about the secret bosses can be found here: x

Here's what's gonna happen. I'm going to provide the classpects i believe the main characters can be aligned with and my reasoning for both parts of the title. Be aware this is my own personal opinion and every classpect analyst's opinion is worth its salt because, frankly, classpects are insane. Okay. God. Let's get to this.

Susie // Knight of Rage

Susie's classpect might for real be the easiest and most obvious one I've ever assigned. It seems incredibly open-and-shut once you think about it. I don't think many are going to disagree with at least the aspect assignment but I'm going to monologue about it some more anyway because there's a lot more in support of this than some might think and it's actually pretty interesting.

Rage is the immovable object of aspects - Ragebound are incredibly volatile not only to their environment but to narrative itself. They're unpredictable and can quite literally go against the powers that be (i.e. narrate the story) because they don't feel like following their directions. And Susie does that routinely - she cuts off the player's choice and states their decisions don't matter while being inside an RPG and, in Chapter 1, quite literally refuses to listen to their commands. She is the one that initiates the revelation that her and Ralsei can act on their own, and picks a third option from the two given to the player, splitting the party and leaving its leader alone.

When it comes to less meta elements of this aspect, the main thing that comes up is her strong emotions. Contrary to the name, Rage is not only about anger. It is largely about negative emotions, though. In addition to anger, doubt, bitterness, aggressiveness or fear (specifically of being betrayed, left alone or lied to) are all emotions Susie exhibits quite a lot. Fortunately, she finds a way to utilize those and vent them out instead of bottling them up or lashing out, and she does that by... oh man, utilizing them? If only there was a class that did that, huh-

Yeah, Knights have a tendency to weaponize the elements of their aspect A Lot. With a Knight of Rage, it's something among the lines of a barbarian in DnD - they utilize their negative emotions to gain strength, using it as a means for attack and protection; both literally and on a more interpersonal level. And Susie does both! She's a bully both before and during a good part of Chapter 1 but it seems very much so that she's projecting, especially when it comes to the entry on Noelle's blog. It's a defense mechanism to hurt before you get hurt.

It's not surprising in the slightest - Knights tend to have incredibly low self-esteems. Later on she switches to a different strategy - she lets her strong emotions fuel her attacks and even further down the line, her S-Actions. Her demeanor switches to very explicit protectiveness of her team. And I think something that was kind of the final nail in the coffin for me is that her title in the party is literally its knight:

Doesn't get more explicit than that, I don't think.

Noelle // Mage of Hope

The reason why Noelle is on the list so early on is because her and Susie have opposite aspects and I think that's fun, and that it's easier to exemplify those differences if they're next to each other.

Being a pair to Rage, Hope is an aspect that is also connected to its hero being somewhat connected with the narrative. But, as opposed to the way Ragebound refuse to make things easy for the narrative, Hopebound are a driving force within it, either through acting on their own volition or being forced by an external force. Other evidence includes its symbolic connection to angels, things that are holy (like... Holy Prayer? wow), extreme passion for their interests and a penchant for uncovering what is real and true but perhaps hidden (like easter eggs in a game, for example).

Hope is the unstoppable force to Rage's immovable object. In connection to Hope's alignment to miracles, it fits in nicely with how Noelle is the key component in the Weird/Snowgrave Route, as it reads as something straight out of a creepypasta, something that should not even be possible in the game. (To those who read HS scratching their head about the miracles being a Hope thing, Gamzee was a Bard (a destruction class), and thus ghosting his opposite aspect - in his case Rage. We'll talk about aggressively ghosting aspects by Princes and Bards in just a while, though).

The Mage part might be more complex and less obvious than the Hope part. A Witch might be something that seems more intuitive due to her power level but I'll do my best to make my case here.

Mages internalize their aspect through experience. They take in both the good and the bad that comes with it and learn from it to be able to use it. Their relationship to their aspect can then be quite volatile - sometimes the aspect serves to actively harm them, they have too little or too much of it. And Noelle puts a lot of faith into others and is pretty easy to trust and be swayed to one side or another. This shows the most prominently in the Weird/Snowgrave Route once again, where her blind faith in the hope of getting stronger puts her through the awful experience of being made a tool of destruction.

There's also a fascinating element to Mages and their relationship with external beings. They (along with Seers) are extremely attuned to hearing and perceiving external forces and their voices (like the commands of the exiles in HS - or the player in DR). Additionally, Mages have once been speculated to be the passive counterpart to Witch at some point before settling into the active part of the knowing class duo they make alongside Seers today because while Witches manipulate, the Mages are more prone to manipulation, mostly through something directly connected to their aspect (Sollux by literally fate itself, and Meulin by someone close to her as Doom and Heart heroes respectively). What screws up Noelle in the Weird Route, is her blind belief in who she perceives as Kris and their actions, her sureness in there being some method to this madness and the reason for all this being getting stronger, something she really wants due to feeling weak.

Let's discuss that feeling.

Kris // Witch of Heart

I know! I know. I know this class seems out of pocket but I'll do my best to justify this title, I promise.

Let's start with Heart, the less... offending of the two. Heart as an aspect has to do with emotions and desires, yes, but mostly it has to do with identity, self, personas and literal soul. I'm sorry but this is non-negotiable - if you believe Kris is anything else than Heartbound, you need to reconsider the text again. Yes, there could be some argument about how struggle for freedom can be a sign of them being Breath-aligned but their struggle is mostly for the freedom of self-expression. There are multiple points in Chapter 2 at which we direct them to do something and they comply but use an incredulous inflection or say something that technically is what we picked but in such a tone that it's construed as something completely opposite. Their struggle is centered on identity for sure.

It goes beyond just our influence and Kris's struggle against it, though. There are multiple hints at Kris not really being entirely comfortable with their place in Hometown as the sole human. They don't like thinking about other humans, Toriel says they would wear a horn headband because one time they asked when their horns would grow in. They're clearly usually an introvert and don't like other people knowing too much about them. They look up magic and were interested in the occult at least at some point, and seem to not really want to be themselves.

In what ways are they a Witch then? Many, actually! The first piece of evidence is that Witches break the rules of their own aspect, and I don't think calling tearing your own soul out of your chest and shoving it into a constricting place for just a moment is a stretch. Additionally, they seem to even have a Witch Familiar that is closely related to their aspect and without whom the entire plot would change drastically! It's you. You're the familiar. The soul is the familiar.

And the 4th-wall breaking fun doesn't end there! Despite being possessed, they still retain who they are - no one thinks they're a different person, after all. Which means that us using Kris, Noelle's childhood friend, to exploit her need (dare I say desire, to make the connection to the Heart aspect more explicit) to feel stronger and make her IceShock every moving thing in Cyber City is us utilizing their abilities to manipulate the Heart aspect.

Ralsei // Prince of Void

Remember when I said we were gonna talk about how the destruction classes like Princes and Bards ghost the aspect opposite to theirs in a bit? Yeah, that time is now. Back on the more stable ground because I don't think it's that big of a hot take to argue Ralsei is a Prince of Void, given that it's basically in his title within the team.

Yes, Princes and Bards ghost their opposite aspect a lot. Ralsei accomplishes this by being a walking, talking exposition machine, something that those more familiar with the mind-numbing properties of Aranea Serket, a Sylph of Light (an inverse of a Prince of Void) would know is very up the alley of those who are Lightbound. Ralsei serves as an introduction to lore, game mechanics and other very technical things. However, ghosting the opposite aspect is not the same as being bound to it. Ralsei is still very much Voidbound.

There's an air of secrecy and obscurity around Ralsei. He's not telling us something. He smashes through the 4th wall - something Void heroes adore to do, by the way - like it's nothing by showing knowledge of what he should not be aware of at all - what do you mean EAST classroom. How do you know this and why can you acknowledge this. He can banish us to focus on other characters to talk to Kris one-on-one, causing a narrative blackout of sorts, which is another thing Voidbound tend to do.

At the same time, he shows clear signs of being a Prince that destroys his aspect or with his aspect. As I said, he's incredibly prone to throwing animated exposition dumps at the player but that's not all there is to it. He's literally part of a team of heroes who set out to destroy dark fountains. Not only can he cause narrative blackouts around himself, he tries to make Kris stop focusing on what happened after Spamton's fight, blocking off a path to solve that mystery. "You don't need to know anymore" kind of thing.

Destruction classes are dual in nature through being defined by their aspect but setting out to destroy it. He's afraid of being abandoned and forgotten. He keeps things from both his friends and the player. He doesn't want to fall prey to obscurity. He's secretive and does unexplained things through unknown means, like by just showing up in the Cyber World. As befitting a Prince, he's a walking contradiction.

Berdly // Page of Light

Believe it or not, Berdly's was one of the more tricky titles to pin down. I'm still not fully sure of it but I'm able to argue in favor of this decision.

Light is an aspect of relevance, knowledge and fate. Berdly is someone incredibly focused on academics. However, Pages inherently lack their aspect and literally have to be fed it by someone else who has more of it despite not even being bound to it until they reach a power threshold that allows them agency. Once they do, they're a force to be reckoned with but, as things stand, Berdly admits that Noelle is the real smart kid and he would never be the best in class if it weren't for her.

Despite not being the opposite of an Heir of Void, the narrative seems hilariously allergic to him anyway. He starts reading out loud and literally puts Kris to sleep with it. His monologue is not going to be read by many people because it's happening while there is a time-sensitive multi-part puzzle going on. Queen, the antagonist that moves most of the plot forward, runs away from him. Additionally, Lightbound are usually quite prone to being swayed to do things, and Berdly is a pain for Queen to handle but she does manipulate him quite a lot anyhow. He's flabbergasted when she captures Noelle right in front of him because that's not what they agreed on.

As an aside, one of his attacks is him throwing pages of A+ school assignments. That's the most hilariously Page of Light attack in the history of ever.

BONUS ROUND

Player // Seer of Mind

Bet you weren't expecting that, huh?

Every player is a different separate person but again, classpect titles are more about the place and role in the narrative and oh boy, oh boy. Is there evidence that the soul, i.e. us, are a Seer of Mind in the story of Deltarune.

For starters, it's literally the inverse of Kris's classpect. We're as diametrically opposed to them as possible. Secondly, as stated with Noelle, knowledge classes like Mages and Seers are incredibly attuned to meta-level voices. In Noelle's case that means things like hearing our commands even if Kris is down. In our case it means literal narration. We also know things we have no business of knowing - we're able to do things like hearing characters' thoughts, literally mind-reading them.

A more traditional role of a Seer of Mind (and we know this because there literally is one in HS) is knowing the outcomes and consequences of certain decisions. We literally have the power of reloading and saving to find that out. I rest my case.

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